Shadow Empire - Arachnids & Allocations update v1.26e out now

A new update for Shadow Empire is out now. This update focuses on the Arachnids and their presence on almost all planets, allocations, balancing, game improvements and bug fixes.

Here are the patch notes:

During the Galactic Republic era domesticated Arachnids were present on many Planets as they were able to produce the raw materials needed to produce Starlace fabric, an ideal material to produce advanced heat shields for the re-entry into the atmosphere of spacecraft.
After the Dissolution War many domesticated Arachnids starved in their pens, but as they are quite clever, on most worlds, at least some of them managed to escape and they went Feral.
In their Feral stage there can be some reproduction, but it is only when the Arachnids reach their Hive stage (or higher) that they’ll get a Queen and get some serious reproduction going.

The Arachnids Minors have multiple levels now: regular, Hive, Swarm and Nexus. On the higher difficulty levels they’ll be able to spawn special castes as: Defendrix, Dominatrix and Exterminatrix, as well as Queens and Champions.

Allocations give reference to 3 minor rule changes:

• Unit Supply is now prioritizing Food a lot and Oil quite somewhat. This has been done to prevent cases where Ammo uses up all the logistical points and nothing is left for even more vital stuff. Food is vital for obvious reasons (starvation), but oil is also vital because low oil gives actually quite horrible combat penalties.
• Finetuned Farm-/Dome-steads building and now allowing maximum 2 Farmsteads to be build in a Zone, from there on upgrading those (until they reach Farm Community Level) is going to be the rule. We want to avoid cases where Farmsteads just clutter too much map. (partially *-ed)
• Finetuned Private Debt rules : Population can now go into debt as well to buy full Private Farm/Dome Communities.*

Balancing, Changes and Improvements

• It is now possible to create “Makeshift” Zones on Hexes without a Zone (“No Zone”). However this is more expensive than regular Zone creation (35PP, 500 Credits, 500 freeFolk/soldiers), but it can start a new Zone closer to an existing city (needs to be only 3 hexes away instead of 5, or even without condition if it concerns a small island of 16 Hex or smaller). This seemingly minor addition will give you more flexibility in special cases and open up a large number of possible new strategies concerning expansion by airlift. Note this new feature uses the same “new Zone” button when a “No Zone” Hex is selected.
• Unit Supply is now prioritizing Food a lot and Oil quite somewhat. This has been done to prevent cases where Ammo uses up all the logistical points and nothing is left for even more vital stuff. Food is vital for obvious reasons (starvation), but oil is also vital because low oil gives actually quite horrible combat penalties.
• Finetuned Farm-/Dome-steads building and now allowing maximum 2 Farmsteads to be build in a Zone, from there on upgrading those (until they reach Farm Community Level) is going to be the rule. We want to avoid cases where Farmsteads just clutter too much map. (partially *-ed)
• Finetuned Private Debt rules : Population can now go into debt as well to buy full Private Farm/Dome Communities.*
• The Arachnids Minors have multiple levels now. The higher difficulty level you play the more dangerous they’ll be able to get, spawning special castes as Defendrix, Dominatrix and Exterminatrix, as well as Queens and Champions.*
• Added some protective code to avoid Majors starting on island that is inside a lake (not ocean zone).

Fixes

• Various big fixes to Slavers, Arachnids and Mutants actually “decimating” population & free folk and getting growth of them, as well as them changing zone culture once population levels reach zero. (partially*-ed)
• Fixed exploit where reconquering a Zone (after losing it) gives you a Fate Pack again. (partially*-ed)
• Fixed buggy behavior with MTH wants more staff Decision.*
• Fixed some serious production penalties for various stuff including lowlands penalty for Wind Traps, Agri Rain PH modifier, Agri Soil Heavy Metal modifier, Solar Panel rain modifier, Agril Rad modifier. This only kicks in with games started with this latest version, otherwise the rule shock might be to violent to many ongoing games.*
• Fixed layout bug in Planet Stats Report caused by some rare planet gens.
• Fixed Energy Rebate rule to be actually applied
• Fixed some Tech mouseovers*
• Fixed rare issue with disappearing Free Folk through some Decisions like “Demagogue”
• Slight nudge to CAS increase indep of tradition level, very slight though…
• Fixed showing of movement arrow with strategic movement when using roads with more than 9999 logistical points on them
• Fixed miss-focussing map in some map centering cases on hexes that are close to the “map seam” where the map loops (Asset clicking, probably also history replay)
• Fixed a crash causing bug because units were transferred between regimes (like with the new option introduced in subversion D for Arachnids to split off from their core regime) (big thx to Carl)
• Fix Fate Stratagem category in Stratagem Encyclopedia crash
• Fixed Geyser turbine mouseover text.*
• Fixed rare issue with Minor Militia popping up between friendly units (after you conquered their “masked” zone center).